One’s growth and attitude is affected by the environment one grows up in. This is relevant in both books Kindred and How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. In both books, the main characters, Dana and Yolanda, struggle to assimilate into their new environments. For Dana it is adapting the role of a slave in the antebellum South and for Yolanda and her sisters it is learning how to blend into American society. Though these characters assimilate into different societies in different ways, they both assimilate to gain a sense of security and self-understanding which can be seen through their understanding of the power of language and search for a home.
Both characters assimilate in different ways through language, teaching them the power and
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With Yolanda, her assimilation into America results in confusion as recalls her past in order to determine who she is and where she belongs. With Dana, she travels to the past to understand herself and where she came from, and ultimately, what a true family is. Though these two characters are different in both where they come from and who they are, they represent the universal theme of maturation, finding oneself, and what a home is. In Dana’s search for answers, she experiences the horrors of slavery that her ancestors lived through. “We’re going to have to fit in as best as we can with the people here for as long as we have to stay. That means we’re going to play the roles you gave us”(Butler 65). This marks the beginning of her maturation as she learns what slavery is like, and through this experience, she is able to attain the true definition of a family. A family is like a support system, one you feel at home with. As for Yolanda, she goes back to her native country and reflects on her past, in order to find herself as well. When she goes back she wishes, “Let this turn out to be my home” (Alvarez 11). In all her time back in the United States, she was unable to feel like she was at home because “the natives were unfriendly, and the country inhospitable” (Alvarez 141). Clearly, both Dana and Yolanda have suffered a lot and feel that a